Bethel Spring Series - Wrapping up 2007

Yeah I finally put up the M40 results for the last Bethel race. I'm waiting for things to happen at work (server reboots and such) and decided to be productive while chained to my seat. The thing that delayed me is that my fellow promoter sent me the results (top 6) but since we list top 10, I thought he must have forgetten the next four.

I forgot about that typhoon we had that day.

Yesterday it dawned on me that six was all I was getting - I'd forgotten that only six racers did the race. So this morning I put the results up. Updated overall for M40 and the team standing as well.

My fellow promoter asked about the wet tents and gear we put away that last race - if I didn't dry the stuff out, it'd smell horrible when we pulled it all out for the next race on June 3rd (we're helping out). So a couple weekends ago I pulled the wet promoting stuff out of the van. Water (deadly stuff, mind you) poured onto me from a couple of the tarps/tent-sides - that was a surprise. But with a great, sunny day, unlike our last race day, the tents and tarps cooperated and dried out in a couple hours. I even laid out the ropes and tie-down straps - we used them to keep the tents from blowing away (did I mention that last day was also really windy?) and they are now dry and snug back in the van.

The only thing left to do is to distribute the trophies, medals, and an odd prize here and there. We never got our carbon caliper brakes so I guess we'll either write it off or give them away next year (if we ever get them). And then I can call the race done for 2007.

You know, sometimes it's hard for me to read about the guys that did Bethel doing more and more races (and much tougher ones at that). Although it's reasonably ego-boosting to do Bethel (or lead out the last lap at Plainville, for example), the reality is that, from an overall bike racing level, I'm as fit as an sub-par Cat 4.

Duking it out at the big early season road races has never been an option for me. In some ways I wish it was different. I could be getting psyched up to do these races, pouring on the miles, and getting lighter and lighter.

And in other ways, well, it's a relief. Promoting Bethel forces others on my team to step up on Sundays for support (I also beg off of Saturday work). So the one weekend we don't race, Easter weekend, I am on call. Inevitably I end up working like mad, like one Easter Sunday where I drove back from Massachusetts after literally leaving the dinner table while with my now-fiancee's family.

She wasn't very happy about that.

It seems that every Easter dinner has been a sort of repeat - to the point that we don't make plans to be too far from the house anymore. After the Series ends, I try and pick up the slack, and combined with catching up on housework and other things, the net result is that I virtually stop riding for a month or so. Therefore I feel no obligation to try and do some quantum leap in fitness to try and contest more races. That would get me sawed off the back in two laps at Jiminy Peak, not one. Even if, in 1999, I'm listed on their site as finishing 6th in the Cat 3 race.

Because I really didn't do that.

And so I focus on things other than bicycle racing.

Yesterday was a big day for for me and virtually none of it had to do with cycling. New rug, started outfitting two rooms (of five) with furniture, yardwork, and we put more things that went into PODS hibernation, all in preparation for putting the house on the market, hopefully selling, and hopefully buying something up north a bit (80 miles north, not like Artic Circle north). Since we have control over listing the house, that's a definite. The rest we're just crossing our fingers.

The one bike thing we did was we put in different elastomers on the new Thudbuster seatpost we got for the tandem. Apparently it's the best thing for stokers since the captain's deodorant so we decided to give it a try. Since the stoker is lighter than the default setting on the post, we swapped the appropriate elastomers.

Today is more of the house stuff (well, after the work stuff happens) and hopefully, maybe, we'll get out on the tandem. And perhaps test out that Thudbuster for real.

Oh. Now we have server reboot problems.

Gotta fly.